Sofas and Socks and Other Stuff
by tridget
Summary: A 'slice of life' scene with Danny and Steve, set in Season Two prior to episode 2.10


A/N: Thank you to my awesome beta, ga_unicorn.**  
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**Sofas and Socks and Other Stuff**

There's nothing under the furniture except for a thin layer of dust and one crumpled up napkin from a take-out food joint. Danny plants his hands on the floor and pushes himself back to his feet, growling in frustration. The search is taking way longer than it should. He hasn't slept well all week and he's in no mood for hide-and-seek today. The thought of going over the same territory once more and digging a little deeper is about as appealing as pineapple on a pizza, but he's out of options. He twists around, scanning the room. Maybe behind the sofa cushions…

The couch is dark brown leather. It's not new, but it's not worn. It says the owner works a lot and doesn't sit down much at home. Danny moves a pillow aside and wedges one hand behind the first cushion. His fingers rake through crumbs, a few coins and—

He scrunches up his nose in disgust at the spongy mass he finds. "So help me, Steven, if this is a dead mouse…" Danny warns. He regrets not putting on latex gloves for the task.

The exhumation is quick. Danny holds the glob at arm's length and has to concede that it doesn't _smell_ like a dead mouse. He knows this due to an unfortunate incident involving a formerly alive rodent back at his old excuse for a place to live.

Danny narrows his eyes, unsettled by the traces of gray-green fuzz around the edges of the thing. But the shape is all wrong. It doesn't really _look_ like a dead mouse either. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a portion of the sandwich he'd eaten while watching the shopping channel several nights ago.

"Serves you right, Steve," Danny grumbles. "If '_we_' had kept the dog, he'd have eaten the leftovers long before they ended up in your sofa."

There's a garbage can in the kitchen and there's one beside the desk in the office. There is also a door leading outside, just a few steps away from the sofa. Danny opens the door and tosses out what's left of the snack. "I hope that attracts a very large Hawaiian raccoon. Then you will regret that '_we_' do not have a dog."

He shuts the door firmly for emphasis, watches out the window for a minute, and then sighs. Ranting just doesn't do as much for him when there's no one around to hear it. Steve is out for his morning swim, run, volcano-climb, and whatever other calisthenics the guy does before the sun is barely up.

Danny runs his clean hand over his hair and heads back to the sofa. "I'd like to trade that prize for what's behind sofa cushion number two" he says, not without some trepidation over the deal. He flexes his hand in preparation then eases his fingers behind the second cushion.

Nothing.

He pushes his hand in a little further, but it's a tight fit. A _very_ tight fit. For a moment, Danny panics, thinking his hand is stuck. But he puts his knee on the seat and shifts his weight on the springs until he can yank his arm free.

"Sonuvabitch!" There are reddened patches of skin on his forearm now which are probably going to bruise. Living in Steve's house is turning out to be almost as high-risk as being his partner. Danny massages his arm and considers calling it a day for the sofa, but he still hasn't found what he's looking for.

Danny positions himself to avoid the bear trap this time. His fingers inch their way behind the springs and brush over something solid. It's clearly not what he's looking for. Danny considers his options. "It's probably none of my business," he says. "On the other hand, it's not as if it's private because private things are kept locked away in a vault or someplace secure. Private things are _not_ kept in the sofa which is currently serving as your partner's bed, ergo — yes, Steve, ergo — this is _not_ private."

Ample justification for his curiosity notwithstanding, Danny lifts his head and checks to make sure Steve isn't nearing the door yet. The coast is clear, so he extracts the small cardboard box. It's heavy considering its size. Danny looks at it and rolls his eyes. He wonders if Steve lost the box of ammo there or deliberately stashed it away for God knows what emergency. On second thought, it has to be the latter because Steve misplacing ammo is about as big an oxymoron as they come.

He tucks the box away exactly as he found it.

Cushion number three it is then. Danny takes a deep breath and holds it, inserting his hand with even more caution this time. After seeing Steve's ammo box, he wouldn't put it past the guy to have a couple of grenades down the next cushion — without the pins. "Unwanted guest. Unwanted guest sits on sofa. Boom! No more unwanted guest." Okay, so that's probably a bit drastic even for Steve — on a good day, at least.

Danny's hand is in up to his wrist, his fingers sweeping back and forth. They pause when they touch something that's cool and metallic, but definitely not a grenade. Danny doesn't have to pull the thing out to know it's a set of handcuffs. "I am so hoping these are reserved for use only in the line of duty, because otherwise this is TMI, and seriously, could you not have found a more discrete location? Not that I care what you do on your own time, but…" He shoves the possibilities from his mind.

Danny straightens up and surveys the room once more. "So where the hell are my socks?"

He hasn't gotten around to doing any laundry since crashing at Steve's place. Last night he'd laid out the last clean, matched pair he could find, along with the rest of his clothes for today. The pants are still where he left them, but there's no sign of the socks.

They couldn't have gone far…

"You're up," says a voice, only inches behind Danny.

Danny startles and his heart hammers in his chest as he whips around. Steve's standing there in jogging pants and a T-shirt that looks like it shrank in the wash.

"Christ!" Danny yelps. "Sooner or later you're going to give me a heart attack. You know that, don't you? I've been here almost a week now and this is getting really old. How much longer am I going to have to suffer your ninja SEAL routine?" he demands.

"Probably until you find another place to live," Steve says.

Danny scowls at him. "Grow up."

"Hey, I'm just trying to make sure my partner stays sharp." Steve has that slightly maniacal energy of an endorphin high. He bounces on the balls of his feet and throws a couple of fake punches at Danny.

Danny folds his arms over his chest and concentrates on not blinking in reaction to Steve's shadowboxing. "You're efforts to keep me sharp will have gone to waste when I'm lying in the ICU hooked up to a heart monitor."

Danny watches with satisfaction as Steve drops his arms to his side and puts on his serious face.

"You wanna avoid a heart attack?" Steve tosses out, a challenge in his tone. "Then come jogging with me in the morning."

"Oh, so that's what this is about."

"This isn't about anything."

"Yes, it is. All that exercise can't possibly be any fun and you won't admit it, but you'd like some company out there in the morning to alleviate the boredom. That's why you keep harassing me to join you. Well, we should have kept the dog because that's what dogs are for — keeping you company when no one else will."

"Oh. So this is about the dog thing. Again."

"No, it's not about the dog thing. I only mentioned the dog because it was coincidentally relevant to the conversation."

"Just like the dog happens to be relevant to practically every conversation we've had this week. This is about the dog thing."

"See," Danny counters, "first you said this wasn't about anything. But now you're saying this is about the dog thing. So obviously, you think it's about something."

Steve's face morphs into his 'what the hell?' look. "Whatever," he finally says and starts heading toward the kitchen. "Inform me when you've decided what _this_ is about."

"Fine. I'll do that." But in all honesty, Danny's not sure this actually _is_ about anything – anything other than the fact that he can't find his damn socks — and maybe a little bit of the dog thing.

"Fine," Steve calls back from the kitchen. "And I'll address it just as quickly as you attended to the pending acceptance for my apology."

Danny raises his voice to be heard over the sound of water running from the tap. "So now we're back to the issue of the apology. Again. What do you want me to do — take out a full page announcement in the newspaper?"

Steve reappears in the room with a large glass of water in one hand. Danny thinks for a minute that Steve is going to dump it over him, but he drinks almost half the contents before speaking again. "Put in a half page announcement and we'll call it quits. And put some pants on before we go to work. The Nets logo boxers aren't working with the shirt and tie."

"For your information, I prefer to put my socks on before my pants—"

"This is something I want to know?"

"And I can't find my socks, hence, no pants yet. I left my last clean pair of socks _right here_ last night," Danny says, gesturing to the folded pants. "Now they're gone."

"Good thing you're a detective then," Steve says. He sits down and swallows more water.

Danny pulls his pants on and stares down at his bare toes. He's either going to have to go barefoot inside his shoes or wear dirty socks, and he's not sure which is the lesser of two evils.

Before Danny can work that out, Steve tilts his head back and sniffs the air. His brow furrows.

Danny follows suit and sniffs, too. "I don't smell anything."

"Exactly," says Steve and chugs back the last of his drink.

Damn it. Steve was baiting him. Danny manages to hold off until the count of ten before swallowing the bait, hook, line, and sinker. "What? What is this '_exactly_' supposed to mean," he demands.

Steve shrugs with a studied casualness. "It's just strikes me as kinda odd, you know. I mean, it's time for breakfast, but I don't smell anything. There's no omelets, or toast, or waffles. I don't even smell orange juice or coffee."

"I guess the room service hasn't shown up yet."

"Room service? Room service?" Steve's pitch rises a couple of notches. "You didn't consider that it might be _your_ turn to make breakfast?"

Danny feels a tiny, perverse glow of victory inside that he got Steve going with that one. Payback's a bitch. "I considered it," Danny says. "I thought it might be presumptuous to get breakfast started in _your_ kitchen."

"Presumptuous?"

"Yes, presumptuous."

Steve reaches down to pull off a sneaker. "I'm going to take a shower. You wanna stay here another night, then _presume_ you should make breakfast while I'm showering." He thumps the shoe onto the floor then removes the other sneaker.

Danny stares at the sock-clad feet sticking out below Steve's jogging pants. The socks have bold, broad horizontal stripes on them. "You're wearing my socks," Danny declares. "_My_ socks." He points a finger of accusation at Steve, making sure to keep a little more distance than he did the last time he did that. "You took my last clean pair of socks. You _stole_ my socks."

"No, I didn't"

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't. I needed socks. There was a clean pair of socks in _my_ house. I put them on. I didn't know they were yours. I didn't see a laundry label with your name in them. I didn't _steal_ your socks."

"You did, too. You _know_ those are mine. You don't own a single pair of socks that look like that."

Steve looks down at the broad stripes around his ankles. "Now that you mention it, I don't recall buying a pair of Wicked Witch of the West memorabilia socks." He strips the footwear off and throws the two wads at Danny — sweaty wads judging by the amount of water Steve just drank to replenish himself.

"Wicked Witch…" Danny splutters, deflecting the now not-clean socks. He takes a breath to steady himself; he's not letting Steve sidetrack him with the 'Wicked Witch' remark. "The point is, you came down here, you saw _my_ socks on top of _my_ clothes, and you _stole_ them."

Steve sticks out his arms. "So arrest me."

"No, thank you," says Danny, "I'm not into handcuffs."

"What?" Steve looks so completely baffled that Danny thinks maybe they really are for emergency line-of-duty use.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose for a minute as if he's getting a headache, then he gets up and heads towards the stairs. "Breakfast. In fifteen minutes. I want waffles."

"Your hospitality for houseguests sucks," Danny says.

Steve pauses at the foot of the stairs and turns around slowly. "Houseguests? I have a houseguest? Oh, well, excuse me. I thought you were more like a temporary roommate. Make that a _very_ temporary roommate."

"There's a difference between a houseguest and a temporary roommate? Define the difference for me."

"Houseguests are a hell of a lot more work. Roommates are supposed to…share."

"Like you shared my socks?"

"No, more like you should have taken a turn making breakfast. Next you'll be wanting a mint on your pillow every night and a fluffy courtesy bathrobe."

"A mint would be a nice touch," Danny says.

Steve's bare feet slap against the floor as he stomps back to the kitchen. "You want a mint on your pillow?" he hollers from the next room. "Well, you can _have_ a mint on your pillow."

"Nice and all as it is, I think I'll forgo that service."

A cupboard door bangs shut. Steve storms back with a crushed bag of what might be leftover Halloween candy, upends it, and dumps the lot over Danny's pillow. "Happy?" Steve asks.

Danny looks at the candies, which are _not_ mint. "They're fruit-flavored," he says.

Despite all that so-called healthy exercise, Steve looks as though his blood pressure is rising. Or maybe the redness is just from too much sun exposure.

It's Steve's turn to point a finger at Danny. "Find another place to live. Today."

"Fine," says Danny. "I wouldn't want to stay where I am obviously not welcome."

"Fine," says Steve. He thumps up the stairs and goes into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Danny stares after him for a minute and then heads to the kitchen. "Waffles it is then."

The bathroom door opens.

"Blueberry," Steve calls down the stairs. "I want blueberry waffles."

The bathroom door closes.

Danny can hear the water upstairs turn on as he opens the fridge to look for the blueberries. Then the water stops. The bathroom door opens again.

"And don't forget we need to pick up beer on the way home. There's a game on TV tonight," Steve says.

"Okay," says Danny.

The door closes again.

Smiling, Danny gets to work on the blueberry waffles. Despite the fact that he still doesn't have any clean socks, the day is going pretty well. He hates to admit it when Steve is right, but he has to give his friend credit for the prediction he made last year. They do get along great.

~~~oooo~~~

The End


End file.
